


Control Freak

by jericho



Category: Velvet Goldmine
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-08
Updated: 2012-06-08
Packaged: 2017-11-07 06:52:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/428162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jericho/pseuds/jericho
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Even when he's down and out, Brian is still in control.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Control Freak

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in the late 90s. It's pretty atrocious now. Oh well.

I couldn't feel a thing, laying there on the bed with shoddy hair and a new thin, wired body. Mandy was screaming, the beginning of her sentence revving up like a war tank. "I am his wife, for fuck sakes!" And then she cried, cried, cried.

I wondered if she knew how lucky she was to be able to do that. She deserved none of my sympathy. She was in the land of the living, capable of moving on without an ounce of reinvention, and she spent her time bothering me. I laughed, the drugs pulsing through my veins like liquid sugar. My head spun, the body on the bed next to me quivering from snickers, and I laughed harder. Because what else was there to do? My career was gone, my wife was gone and the only person I cared about was gone. Do you blame me?

You should.

I think sometimes about where he is. I wonder if he's thinking of me. I wonder if he knows that Mandy was my ornament, dressed in shiny frocks and makeup caked on her face like a thrift store prostitute. But it was always about Curt. From the minute I saw him, he was like my very own Christmas present.

"A man's life is his image," I used to say. I told Curt that, even. I wonder what he thought of me, standing there rubbing the soft material of his shirt with my thumb. But it's true. So I ask you, what the fuck am I now?

It was a week before the big blow, when Curt stormed out of my life with all the vengeance and precision of a career criminal. We were working in the studio for hours on end, drinking litres water for our dry throats. Curt kept clearing his throat during his tracks, finishing off one line and sending a rough half-cough through the wires to the tape. It was a tiny sound, but the system magnified it. Every time the engineer rolled his eyes at me, like I had put him up to it. Jerry wasn't around, so I was the boss. "Just do it over," I snapped at him, knowing he was probably keeping a secret list of things to tell Jerry.

Then Jerry wised up and started sitting in. He sat back with a stone face, not saying a word as Curt flubbed track after track. He gave me a sidelong glance and I returned a pleading one. Please, I thought. This is all we have.

We ended the day at 9 o'clock in the evening, getting a gasp of cool air before climbing into the dusty limo. Curt was slumped back in the seat, his black nail polish glinting every time the street lights hit it. He ran his fingers through his hair, forming a thin veil over his face. I should have squeezed his hand then. He knew he wasn't as good as me, and that had to hurt. But I didn't. Instead I said "Let's get a room."

It was our favorite hotel. I checked in under the name John Baez, a spin off of a folk artist from the sixties that my uncle loved. To me, it was my own personal fuck-you to the free love era. Since when was love ever free?

The room was large and clean, the bed perfectly made with tight corners and the bedspread strangling the pillows underneath. Curt walked around fiddling with everything. He picked up the room service menu, glancing at it quickly before he dropped it on the night stand.

I walked up behind him, putting my arms around his waist and planting a kiss on his neck. "What's the matter, love?"

Curt shrugged. I turned him around so he was facing me, the black pencil lines around his eyes smudged from being so bloody tired. I used my finger and thumb to gently open his mouth, sliding my tongue in so there was no way he could doubt my meaning.

For once in his life, this was probably the last thing Curt wanted to do. He let me push him back on the bed. He didn't object when I slid his pants down his legs, the leather sticking slightly on his skin. He wasn't hard, but my body was tingling and itching, so I didn't care. Our mouths locked in a kiss as I ran my hand down his thigh, feeling the course hair there before I started stroking his cock.

"What's the matter?" I whispered in his ear, smelling the familiar scent of American cigarettes and old sweat.

"Nothing. Just...mmm...do that some more." Now that was the spirit. A little more stroking and prodding and I was perfectly positioned, my arms locked around his legs to hold them up as I nudged his asshole. My penis was throbbing by now, me loving this new, timid version of my lover.

"Don't," he said, his voice like sandpaper. "Brian...."

I pressed my forehead against his and our sweaty stomachs kissed. " _Really_ don't?"

"Not really," he said. "It's just...."

That was all I needed. I pushed inside him, gritting my teeth. He let out a low grunt. I knew it must hurt but he hadn't told me to stop. Instead his hands clutched my arms so tightly there would be white crescents there later from his fingertips.

"Sssshhhh," I whispered, my hips moving slowly back and forth to establish a rhythm. "Just let me in."

His eyes were squeezed shut. I knew there was more to the sentence "let me in" than either of us cared to admit. He was letting me in. He came from a family that tried to smother his personality until it nearly killed him. His drug buddies knew little more of him than what you could read in The Village Voice. He was letting me in, for the first time in his life. Now it was irreversible.

His hips started moving with me, his body moistening and molding against me. He pressed his shoulders back into the pillow, his eyes closed and his mouth open slightly as he let out a tiny moan that went straight to my heart. I knew this was bad. I fucking loved the guy. After all I'd worked for, and after all I'd accomplished, I was in love with a junkie from America.

I wasn't even sure when I took my shirt off, but when he clutched my back he touched bare skin, his fingertips sliding from the sweat there. I knew it would be awhile before he'd come but I was in no hurry. I looked down at him, loving the feeling of this incredible man submitting to me. I could do anything I wanted with him.

I'm not sure what possessed me when I said "I'm better than you." I said it quietly, the damage in the air hot and immediate.

His eyes opened. "What?"

I smiled slowly, knowing he wouldn't get up. "I'm better than you," I repeated. "I'm Maxwell fucking Demon."

I have said a lot of crazy things to people. It's rare that I don't get away with it. But Curt's shove nearly knocked the wind out of me. He pushed me with all his strength, sending me bouncing back onto the mattress. He was off the bed in seconds, finding his pants on the floor without even looking. "Fuck you," he spat, sliding them on like the room was on fire. "Fuck you, Brian."

I giggled for a minute, knowing this was part of the game. But nothing made me retreat faster than him heading for the door.

"Curt," I said, climbing off the bed and making it to the door in two easy strides. Panic moves faster than rage, so I made it there first, slamming my hand against the door to stop him from opening it. "Curt, I'm sorry. I just wanted to see what you'd say."

Every move with him was exaggerated now. He rolled his eyes, turning toward me like a drama queen. His next word was almost like two syllables. "What?" 

"Curt...I just, I'm sorry. Don't leave." I truly regretted it now. My eyes must have been pleading with him, my body language showing it. "I'm sorry. That was stupid. I didn't mean it."

 _Oh, bullshit. You know you meant it._

But he faced me, his breath coming hard and fast. It eventually slowed, the look in his eyes shifting from anger to pain to sadness and back again. It finally settled on pain. "Why did you say it, Brian?"

"I don't know," I said. "It was stupid. I'm sorry." There was no resistance when I pulled him against me, giving him the hug that I knew he needed. "I'm sorry," I whispered in his ear, feeling his breath against my neck.

When Curt finally pulled away, he gave an exaggerated nod. "Okay, then." I watched him from behind as he took timid steps back to the bed.

That was the point when I knew he would never leave. I could say anything or do anything and just like everyone else, he couldn't help but love me.

Or so I thought.

But something tells me that wherever he is, or whatever he's doing, he still does. I learned early on in my life that I am irresistible. Even laying here in bed, snorting a mountain of cocaine, I have the same followers that learned to love me at the same time the rest of the world did. They were there before Curt, and they'll be there after Curt. Curt arrived in a limo and left in a cab. That should tell you something.

Even Mandy will be using my last name years from now, sitting at a table at a smoky pub telling people over Scotch about the good old days when she was with me. And me? I won't feel a thing. I will reinvent myself and move on. You just watch me.  



End file.
